Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site reed.UUCP Path: utzoo!decvax!tektronix!reed!chism From: chism@reed.UUCP (Christine N Chism) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Amalgam (long) Retort (longer) Message-ID: <2413@reed.UUCP> Date: Fri, 31-Jan-86 01:11:46 EST Article-I.D.: reed.2413 Posted: Fri Jan 31 01:11:46 1986 Date-Received: Sat, 1-Feb-86 03:16:37 EST Distribution: na Organization: Reed College, Portland, Oregon Lines: 123 In Amalgam(Long) Eric McColm writes: On Ellen's comment (I think) that she was unwilling to give 50% to get 50% in her life, because of past discrimination, and the related argument that to be free of stereotypes one must live apart from them, not just against them: Ideally, you should be able to live any way you want. Unfortunately, the pressure to live within the stereotypes still exists, which makes it difficult to live apart from the oppression that one still feels, and and to which others still succumb. Once the pressure ceases, women can live their lives any way they want, apart from the stereotypical role models. Until then, women are forced to live either within these confined roles, or in defiance of them. Greater freedom does not yet exist. Forgive me for pitching into you like this but who are you to limit my alternatives? You are dangerously oversimplifying matters here. Difficult does not mean impossible. At the moment, societal expectations do not control womens' lives and thoughts, world without end, amen amen. What is the good of waiting until some mythical future when pressure ceases? I am living now; I must work with what I am given. And happily the situation is not as grim as you paint it. Women's lot has improved amazingly since the fourteenth century when she was married off by her parents, forbidden by law to own land or inherit money, or even to travel freely. Even then an alternative existed. She could join a monastery, a confining alternative and perhaps a flight into another stereotype, but at least she could choose it. This is better than fuming against men for the rest of her life, or submitting to their control without argument. It was a life apart, not wholly in reaction against or in submission to the male hierarchies of the time. And there are women, who even then, managed to form positive goals for themselves, despite bitterness, who created their own roles: Margery Kempe, St. Claire, etc. Without these alternatives, unsatisfactory though they be, women as a group would probably have suicided in prehistory. Many women have lived since that time, creating thousands of role models as challenging as the unspecified stereotypes you discuss are confining. By depicting all women as wholly enslaved to male expectations, you belittle their achievement. Women, can, have, and do contrive positive goals of their own, although they undoubtedly must struggle against prejudice as they work towards them. Some become bitter, but at least in literature, resentment against suppression flaws their work rather than inspires it. Emily Bronte reads better (to me) than George Eliot for this reason. Eliot's resentment detracts from her satirical and humorous observations. It touches her too closely. Reading misogynists affects me the same way. But if you tell me that Emily Bronte lived a life entirely circumscribed by male expectations, you must be reading a very different Emily Bronte than I am. Or if you haven't, give me an example and I will argue with you. But please don't overgeneralize without example. I believe that women are essentially human beings. Dorothy Sayers has written a lovely essay called "Are Women Human?" After considering the almost uniform suppression of women through history, she concludes that they are not, since they are not treated as such. I disagree. I do not wish to trivialize sexual differences (isn't that what this newsgroup is about :-) but women do not come from another planet. Women and men belong to the same species. They might even have similar thoughts. More specifically, neither sex can completely control the other because of one of my favorite imponderables, free will. I believe in it, therefore I have it. You (and I address society as well) can influence me, persuade me and physically force me, but you cannot limit my inherent freedom and dictate my thoughts and objectives unless I let you. And I won't. Hopefully you do not want to. And I do not want to control you either, thank you very much. I have no wish to be the slave even of myself, let alone your "master"! Therefore, I assert that greater freedom than you depict, (though in no wise sufficient) does exist. A woman (or man) can choose her own role model, male or female, and live as she wishes. She will regrettably do this at some cost of security and usually with pain. But countless women have, as have countless men. Self expression is always a dangerous enterprise; it involves opening yourself to others' criticism and when they dehumanize and manipulate you it hurts. Sometimes it even kills, as various martyrs, male and female, have discovered. However, the alternatives that you state are the only ones seem much worse. Human beings have the right and abilities to choose their vocations and role models; both endure suppression as a forfeit for living in society, though the women have been and are being more systematically and thoroughly suppressed than the men. This is terrible, but if you accept it as inevitable, you close the trap on yourself, even if you didn't set it. History shows that both women and men can achieve great things, positively working to their own ends, and not only by reacting negatively against persecution. Your statements rest on the premise that the indoctrination of both men and women to certain roles (controller/controlled) is complete and successful. The roles are there (but which roles?) so powerful and pervasive that one can only accept them or embitter ones life by struggling against them, in either case submitting to their control. PLEASE DO NOT LIMIT THE ALTERNATIVES!!!! These stereotypes (little woman, macho man, gay blade, prick tease, rabid feminist, m.c.p., what have you!) are not the only ones. Create your own! It is possible, though difficult, to evade societal expectations. But no one said life was easy or fair. Even if you get hurt, it might be worth it. from chris The stars are clear tonight. The night is pure and cold. The moon is looking for her lost inheritance everywhere. A window, a branch in blossom And that is enough: No blossom without earth. No earth without space. No space without blossom. Gunnar Ekelof